Vella went back to put the finishing touches on the people’s sundaes; they definitely got whipped cream and a cherry. She then set the children’s sundaes on the granite counter, with a “There you go, sugars,” pronouncing the word as shu-gahs in a way that caused a particularly strong pull on Marilee’s heart.
As her aunt scooted a sundae across toward her, Marilee looked at it and suddenly realized she was sitting on the last stool at the far end of the counter, right where she had always sat as a child when she came running into the drugstore, dragging Anita by the hand. Aunt Vella would lean over the counter, dab at Anita’s tears and ask, “What can I get for my two shu-gah girls today?”
Marilee would be choking back tears but would manage to get out quite calmly that she and Anita would like chocolate milk shakes, please. Her Uncle Perry always called Marilee a little lady because she never yelled or screamed or cried. There were so many times when she wished she could yell and scream and cry.
Now, as then, she took up the long-handled spoon and smoothed the chocolate syrup around on the vanilla ice cream. She liked to let the ice cream get a little soft and then mix it with the chocolate syrup. She would have to admit to being addicted to chocolate, but after having taken tranquilizers for too long after her heartbreak with Stuart, she thought chocolate a fairly harmless aid to getting along in turbulent times. Chocolate tasted good and felt good going down, and it did not make her brain so fuzzy as to spin out of the world.
As she spooned the chocolate and vanilla ice cream onto her tongue, she looked across and caught hers and Corrine’s reflections in the wide old mirror. Corrine’s dark eyes, for a moment, met hers in the mirror, before looking down at her sundae. Marilee watched Corrine’s reflection, the bend of the dark head, the way she tilted it slightly, looking for all the world like her mother at that age.
Marilee’s gaze returned to her own reflection. It struck her quite hard that here she was staring at middle-age and still employing the same coping skills she had employed as a ten-year-old girl.
“You’ve been workin’ way too hard,” Aunt Vella said. “You just need a little boost. You should take a potent mixture of B’s for three months, and it wouldn’t hurt for you to start taking calcium…you need to start thinkin’ about keepin’ your bones. Every woman’s bones start to fade after thirty-five.”
Marilee had followed Vella over to the pharmacy shelves, where her aunt perused the bottles of vitamins and herbs, while the children occupied themselves twirling on the stools at the counter. Actually, it was Corrine being twirled by Willie Lee. She held on to the stool with her thin little hands, while Willie Lee got a kick out of spinning her around. Corrine was always so patient with Willie Lee. She displayed strong mothering instincts with him, and very often she did things for him that he was capable of doing for himself. Willie Lee allowed this, in the pleasing way he always went along with people.
“You worry about them too much. They’ll be fine. They have God, just like you do. He cares for you. Trust Him.”
At her aunt’s statement, Marilee looked over to see that the older woman had noticed her wandering attention.
“Then who looks after the children who are abused and forgotten all over the place?” Marilee asked, more sharply than she had meant to.
“I don’t know,” her aunt answered in the same fashion. “I’m not smart enough to know that. I only know what I know, that there is a God who cares for us, and that worrying never solved a thing. Change what you can, accept what you can’t, and leave off worrying. It just wears you out.”
Marilee sighed, her mind skittering away from a discussion she didn’t wish to get into.
“I couldn’t stand it anymore,” she said. “I took them out of school for the rest of this year. Corrine looks like she’s going to face the firing squad each day she goes to school, and Willie Lee just keeps runnin’ away. Maybe I’m not even addressing the true problem…. I know I’m not…but it just seemed the one thing I could do.”
“Good. You changed something. And there aren’t enough days of school left to worry about it, anyway.” Vella was peering at the labels on the vitamin bottles through her reading glasses at the end of her nose. “Do you have the kids on vitamins?”
“Dailies.”
“Not enough.”
Marilee watched her aunt set about deciding which vitamins would be sufficient for the children. She felt an anger well up inside.
“Can vitamins fix a brain damaged by birthing?” she asked. “Or a heart broken by an irresponsible mother who prefers to drink rather than take care of her daughter?”
Vella’s dark eyes came up sharply. “No one prefers to drink. Anita is sick, Marilee, just like your daddy was.”
Marilee could not address this. She felt guilty for feeling so angry at her sister. Even as she thought about being angry, the anger began to ebb and slip into sadness and guilt, which she hated worse. The guilt threatened to consume her. She kept thinking there ought to be something she could do to help her sister, but everything she had tried had failed. She could not look at it anymore.
“Mrs. Blankenship thinks Corrine needs a therapist,” she said, the words falling out almost before she realized.
“Half of America needs a therapist,” Aunt Vella said, “but where do you find a sane one?”
Marilee had to chuckle at this, said so seriously. She gazed at Corrine, who was now twirling Willie Lee on the stool. “I think a therapist is worth trying, but I just don’t know how I can afford it.”
“Children have an amazing ability to survive. Don’t discount it.”
“That’s another question,” Marilee said, her gaze coming back to her aunt. “What’s goin’ to happen if Corrine gets really sick? How will I pay the doctor bills? My doctor charges sixty dollars a visit.” The limit of those could plainly be seen. “She isn’t my daughter, so I can’t put her on my insurance.”
“Oh, my heavens, don’t go makin’ up worries that likely won’t happen.”
Marilee looked at her aunt.
Her aunt looked back and said, “We’ll help you, Marilee. You know that.”
“I know it, but how far can we all go? You know perfectly well a catastrophe could bankrupt us all without insurance.”
Aunt Vella said very quietly, “Have you thought about adoption?”
“I’ve thought about it.” Marilee felt guilty for admitting what seemed a very bad thought. “But I don’t think Anita would willingly go along with it. I could press it. I could take her to court and prove she isn’t able to care for Corrine, but what would that do to her?”
“You can’t take on Anita’s burdens for her, Marilee. She has to own up to being responsible for her own actions. If she’s going to be a drunken sot, she’ll have to take the consequences. You don’t help her by letting her off. Maybe if you pressed, Anita would have more reason to try to get herself straight.”
Marilee clamped her mouth shut. Discussing this was making her too depressed. She did not have faith in Anita, certainly. And now she was having doubts about having faith in herself. She was sinking into
